


Lies

by capadalek



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:33:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28899714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capadalek/pseuds/capadalek
Summary: Ryoma has a secret to share with Corrin. She wishes he kept it to himself.
Relationships: My Unit | Kamui | Corrin/Ryoma
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	Lies

"... _ what _ ?"

"We are not siblings, Corrin. We do not share blood. I promise you, my father loved you all the same but-"

"Stop."

"Corrin?" She won’t look at him anymore. She’s curling in on herself, pushing him away.

"No.  **Stop** . Don't—please stop talking." Her hand is cradling her head, shoulders shaking. She slowly lowers herself onto the grass, focusing on the cool dew around her.

"Corrin, I know this must be difficult, but-"

"Why..."

"Corrin-"

"Why the  **_fuck_ ** would you tell me this?"

Ryoma takes a step backwards, the shock forcing him away. "Corrin?"

She's looking at him again, but he wishes she wasn't. He's never seen such fury—such hate—on her face before. She’s always smiling, holds love in her heart for everyone. She is a violent source of positivity. It was impossible to feel anything negative around her—she simply wouldn’t allow it. She made him feel safe, relaxed, and happy. Feelings he had begun to forget about, replaced by the crushing pressure of his new position. That’s why he wanted to tell her in the first place, why he…

“Why would you take this away from me?” She’s crying now, face streaked with years worth of unshed tears. “Why would you promise me a family, only to steal it away? Why would you convince me to leave the only people who ever loved me,” he cringes at that— _ good _ , she thinks— “the people who raised me, who called me sister, only to tear away the only fact I could cling to during this war? You convinced me to stay so you and our”—her teeth clench—“ **_your_ ** siblings could get to know the sister that was stolen from you. I only chose to stay so I could try to save both of my families, and as this war has continued, you have now forced me to forsake the only family I really had! You kept me here under false pretenses, Ryoma! I would never have chosen true strangers over my family! I had a  _ life _ in Nohr, I had people who loved me, and now they want me dead because I was foolish enough to believe you! Was any of this even real? Every time you called me sister, every memory you shared with me, every time you tried to help me make up for the years I missed—was it all a lie?”

He reaches out to her, desperate for the connection he felt before, desperate for the bond they shared, but she scoots away from him, wrapping her hands around her torso, knuckles turning white. Her nails are digging into her skin, tearing it away, as if trying to take off the false title imposed on herself.  _ Sister _ , she thinks.  _ Big sister _ , she hears Elise call.  _ Big sister! Please come back! Big sister! _ He starts to see blood.

“Corrin, I swear to you my siblings love you as a sister. They do not know your origins, only I. And I promise you my affections are real as well. I love you Corrin, I swear it, but—”

“But  _ what _ , Ryoma? What could possibly justify telling me this, if you truly believed I was your sister? How could you justify  _ lying _ to me to get me to side with you? Was it all for the sake of the war? Are you using me? Just like you claimed Xander would? Just like  _ Garon _ ?”

“No! Gods no! Corrin, I would never use you, I swear to you I would never hurt you like they would—”

“Wouldn’t you? Has telling me this cut any less deep than Xander’s blade? Would you have let me go, had I chosen him instead? You speak well, Ryoma, but it could never undo the blow you’ve just dealt me.” She’s peeling off the skin of her arms, trying to shed the person she has become, trying to metamorphose into a different woman; one who doesn’t hurt, one who didn’t turn her back on the people who loved her, one who would never have been  _ stupid _ enough to believe these lies in the first place. Who would have been strong enough to stand up to Xander in a place where he still had power over her.  _ Maybe he would have listened _ , she thinks,  _ if I had stayed. Maybe I could have stopped this. Maybe I wouldn’t have hurt him. Maybe he wouldn’t hate me. Maybe he’s right to. _ This body holds so many maybes, so many what ifs. She wants so badly to pull them out, set them free, make someone else carry these burdens. Make him carry these burdens instead. Make him feel even an ounce of her pain.

“I never wanted to hurt you, Corrin. I know I cannot prove to you my intentions, but I want you to know that I would never willingly harm you. I just...needed for you to know. I can no longer keep these feelings to myself. My siblings see you as a sister, yes, but I do not. I love you, Corrin, not as a sister, but as a woman. I had hoped you could become my wife.”

He’s looking at her, looking for any change in her attitude, any semblance of acceptance, but finds none. The flames in her have died down, for now, replaced with cold stone. Her tears have stopped, and she has stopped breaking out of her cocoon for a brief moment. Had he not seen her moments before, he could have mistaken her for a statue, made to represent something he could not yet comprehend.

“ _ Your wife? _ ” Her voice is cool and quiet, like the marble she so resembles. “ _ You wish for me to be your wife? _ ”

“Yes, Corrin. I adore you beyond words, and I wish for us to rule side by side. I could no longer live, pretending to be your brother, pretending to see you as family when I see you as the woman you are; as the woman I love.” He’s smiling at her, so gently. A smile she has seen a thousand times before. A smile she thought was that of a brother finally reunited with the sister whose childhood he missed. A smile she thought was safe, and comforting, and reminded her oh so much of Xander’s. A smile she now knows is a  _ lie _ .

Her bitter laugh sends a chill down his spine. “You  _ love _ me? You  **_see_ ** me? Are you fucking kidding me, Ryoma?” She sees the confusion on his face, the hurt, the rejection, and she wants nothing more than to twist the knife deeper. She wants to hurt him so much, in this moment she wants to kill him, but then she sees Sakura’s face, and she decides she’ll break him instead.

“I loved you too, Ryoma.” She sees a bit of hope flash in his eyes, just for a moment, before he processes it— _ past tense _ . “I loved you like a brother, the brother I thought you were. I looked up to you. I saw you and saw strength, and safety, and protection. All of the things I used to have in my family, and all of the things I needed after their rejection. You were a shining beacon of hope to me, and your acceptance of me was the only thing that kept me going some days. The memories you shared with me of our family meant the world to me, because you accepted me implicitly while I was still facing rejection. Takumi hated me from the start, and it hurt so much. It cut so deep, but you reassured me he would accept me with time. That he would love me,  _ just like you did _ . Back then, you looked at me, sad and scared and broken, and you lied to me. You looked at me and said Takumi could come to accept me because he was my brother when all along, he was right about me! He was right to hate me! I’m not his sister, and he knew it! I am a stranger who came along, got his mother killed, and almost strangled Azura right in front of him! I am nothing but a vehicle for destruction and he saw through me. Every reassurance, every comfort, every damn word you said to me was a lie, and even worse, you lied to your real family as well! You kept this from all of us, and now you dare look me in the eye and claim this was  _ love _ ? This is nothing but the selfish act of a pathetic man. One who puts his own stupid little crush above the well beings of the people he claims to care for.” 

Her voice has been steadily rising in volume, the flames slowly dancing higher, until they finally broke into a scream. She’s crying again, her tirade broken by horrifying sobs that wrack through her, the force of them almost sending her back into the ground. He has never seen such fury before, never seen such a violent force of grief. She’s mourning, he realizes. Mourning the life he took away from her, by telling her this. The image of a future he just stole from her. Her reality has been just shattered by his hand.

“I don’t think—”

“ **No, Ryoma, you don’t!** No man with any semblance of a brain would possibly have done what you just did and think it could end any way other than this!” Her nails tear even deeper than before, her hands sticky and wet and dripping with the woman she thought she was.  _ Big brother _ , she thinks.  _ Big sister _ , Sakura calls, smile bright and eyes shining.  _ Big sister _ , Takumi mutters, hesitant, blushing, avoiding eye contact, but filled with affection nonetheless. It flows out of her and onto the ground, onto the grave she is digging for herself.

Faces begin to blend together, voices become indistinct. She has two sisters, two brothers, but they’re blurry, fuzzy. She reaches out to them, trying to focus on the faces she wants so desperately to love, but she’s empty, now.  _ Little princess. My Dear Corrin. Big Sister. _ The voices call out, but none to her. She doesn’t know who they want anymore. A dead woman, she thinks. Maybe someone who never existed at all.

She feels a hand on her shoulder, and one half of her big brother looks at her with sad eyes. “I’m sorry, Corrin. I never meant to hurt you. I would never purposefully hurt you, please believe me, I just,” he pauses, and she can see pain in his eyes, eyes that she’s known all her life (or has she?), “I felt I couldn’t keep it to myself anymore. I needed you to know, to give you a chance to reciprocate my feelings. I should have known this would be too much, with everything going on, with all the pain you must be going through.” He looks so sad, so lost, and she almost wants to guide him home. She would, if she only knew where that was.

The hand weighing her down drops once again, and she falls on her back, staring up at the sky. At the sun she can’t remember. It’s so bright, here in this field, with this stranger, in this body. It should be warm, too, under these rays, but she feels so very cold. There’s something wet on this body, on the ground beneath her. Something that used to be her, but is no longer.  _ Big sister _ , she hears again, but she couldn’t tell you who said it.


End file.
